Little honey-coloured baby, his mother was unmarried. She takes him to Matruchayya in Nadiad. Matruchayya is an orphanage by a lake, operated by the church. All the orderlies are corrupt; everything costs money.
On Sunday when we believe we can't go to meet the baby, something changes. The baby's eyes open and see the stories written on the walls. Or, basically a logic is formed up in the clouds somewhere - to allow things to happen, against the best interests of the baby.
Theologize, romantisize a storm. An abandonment. That baby doesn't look at us anymore, she doesn't sleep peacefully in our arms anymore. We complained, she doesn't cry enough, she doesn't hold on to my finger, she doesn't shit enough. Happiness needs to have a perfect plan. We follow not our hearts but the reasonable approximations of the astrologers. No one would have advised me to marry beyond a difference of 14 years. The baby is sleeping, noisily condemning us - you search for playful children? she asks... and laughs.
All her photographs fall and break, all her cribs, cradles, lanterns, clothes fall out of the window. She retains a high pose of not speaking of remaining lost - someone had warned against introspection.
Our hands scarred everywhere we touched her, as if a gentle story is being criticized for its sound, non-synchronous music.
She is underweight, light as the breeze. Maybe she is susceptible to many more problems than we can hope to resolve. But for two weeks we thought of her, gave her a name. Then she has disappeared into the wall-paint.
Honey - Baby.
ReplyDeleteChanges that come whether we believe they will or not, on their own accord or yours. Whether dreams can live outside heads is a big question. They may never. They, each of the living dreams we encounter, are composites, sometimes literally, like a baby, sometimes figuratively, of so many other dreamers. We are as well.
Wall paint. Disappeared *as*. Become, wallflower, wallpaper, wallpaint. Flat and seemingly not separate. Yet it came from somewhere first. And it will be covered again.